Bill Frezza is a 35-year veteran of the technology industry. After graduating from MIT with degrees in both science and engineering, Bill spent his early years at Bell Laboratories. Since then, he has worked as a product manager, salesman, marketer, entrepreneur, consultant, technology evangelist, and venture capitalist. Bill holds seven patents and has been investing in early-stage tech startups for the last 17 years as a partner in a venture capital firm. Since 2008, he has been writing weekly opinion columns for publications such as RealClearMarkets.com, Forbes.com, the Huffington Post and Bio-IT World and appeared regularly on TV and radio outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and WBAL. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Hoiles Prize for excellence in American journalism and in October 2013, he became the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 2013-2014 Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow. In January 2014, Bill began hosting RealClear Radio Hour airing Saturdays on Boston’s WXKS 1200AM & WJMN 94.5FM-HD2.

Give Greece What It Deserves: Communism

Once in a great while an opportunity comes along to deliver justice to a people, giving them what they truly deserve. Greece’s time has come.

It must be dawning on all but the most obtuse member of the banking elite that they can’t possibly steal enough money from German taxpayers to save the Greek government from default. Put it off, maybe, but collapse is inevitable.

Once this happens, what is the purpose of casting Greece into some selective temporary financial purgatory where the irrelevant Greek economy can continue embarrassing anyone foolish enough to lend their dysfunctional government a dime? Why not go all the way and give the country what many of its people have been violently demanding for almost a century?

Let them have Communism.

Hard as it is for young people to believe, Communism was once a major historical force holding billions of people in thrall. Outside the halls of elite universities, who still takes it seriously? Sure we have Cuba, where the Castro deathwatch is the last thing standing between that benighted penal colony and an inevitable makeover by Club Med. Then there is Venezuela, though hope is fading that Hugo Chavez will carry the Bolivarian banner much longer now that he’s busy sucking down FOLFOX cocktails while checking for signs that his hair is falling out. And frankly, a psychopathic family dynasty ruling a nation of stunted zombies hardly makes North Korea a proper Communist exemplar.

What the world needs, lest we forget, is a contemporary example of Communism in action. What better candidate than Greece? They’ve been pining for it for years, exhibiting a level of anti-capitalist vitriol unmatched in any developed country. They are temperamentally attuned to it, having driven all hard working Greeks abroad in search of opportunity. They pose no military threat to their neighbors, unless you quake at the sight of soldiers marching around in white skirts. And they have all the trappings of a modern Western nation, making them an uncompromised test bed for Marxist theories. Just toss them out of the European Union, cut off the flow of free Euros, and hand them back the printing plates for their old drachmas. Then stand back for a generation and watch.

The land that invented democracy used it to perfect the art of living at the expense of others, an example all Western democracies appear intent on emulating. Being the first to run out of other people’s money makes Greece truly ripe to take the next logical step beyond socialism.

As wrenching as it will be we can take comfort in the fact that Greece doesn’t have much of an economy to disrupt. The only Greek industry that’s worth a damn is tourism, rapidly collapsing as travelers get tired of being stranded by strikes while dodging Molotov cocktails. The rest of us can find plenty of other sources of lamb chops, yogurt, and olive oil. They crushed the concept of private property long ago under the burden of environmental, cultural, and social regulations that govern land use. Wouldn’t it be instructive to let them have a go at building a workers’ paradise to remind us what state enforced equality looks like?

Unlike neighboring Balkan nations that got to experience the joys of Communism after the Second World War, Greece was brought back from the brink by massive western intervention as well as a Churchillian side deal that obliged Stalin to butt out. The nasty civil war between the Greek Communist Party (the KKE) and government forces backed by Britain and the U.S. set the stage for decades of struggle between communist sympathizers who never gave up the dream, and right wing juntas determined to rule by force. The uneasy peace that has existed since the colonels were booted merely masks underlying tensions as every Greek worries, is someone else working fewer hours than I am?

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I think Mr. Frezza was just venting some steam. I’m sure he doesn’t really mean all that. But, I have to admit, it was fun to see the Greeks get so worked up over it. See, that’s what’s different from Americans and Greeks. Go ahead, say what you want about American, we’re thick skinned enough to just let it roll off our backs. I say to Greeks, just ignore these types of comments. Are you so insecure that you need to respond to Mr. Freeza’s silly premises?

I’m American and live in Greece and although I’m upset with Greeks for different reasons (Animal Abuse/neglect, garbage/litter everywhere/ and graffiti that no one (including police) seems to care about.

When Greeks start caring about their own country enough to keep it clean and respect the wonderful Greek ancients like Socrates etc, then maybe I’ll look into their politics.

Bill, good reply. Although, I told them not to take your comments too serious and more importantly a fault with Greeks is that they worry too much about what people say. Americans get ragged on all the time, and we don’t really care because we are Americans!!! If it makes people feel better to blame Americans, and they can sleep better at night, I’m all for it… I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it..

But, a Greek American like you makes a negative comment, and suddenly you’ll be on the Greek Antenna/Mega news channels I bet tonight as an Ektato (URGENT) alert.

Nobody really took you text as a straight-forward analysis and of course nobody believed that you literally support communism, but it was extremely difficult to be taken as satire since you seem to lack the basis for such thing, so the result was a bad libel.

Who realy does work? Do you work THAT hard to recommend the Greeks to go back to work? I guess people that all of us that belong to any big company (Global ones) or most of the Governments position in many areas and also on A LOT of protected third party companies related to these first ones I mentioned DON´T WORK THAT HARD. Shame on all of the people that don´t work at all mainly bad politicians Please, don´t ‘say greeks go back to work’. The problem in Greece is deeper than we think, as well as in whole Europe poor countries. It´s that they are undemocratic in European Union and so on….please first watch this movie, and answer/comment it with me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSDQe3kMkXQ

The author’s little lark and defensive statement reveals his total ignorance of how a “cute” little bit of fun in an otherwise respected magazine harms real people when such nonsense is repeated and taken up by other periodicals and posters who serve to inflame backward prejudices, distortions and hatred.

I hope that Mr Frezza appreciates that People in Greece who work hard and who have suffered from the consequences of the crisis and who do not have an opportunity to demonstrate that they are over-payed (regardless what the payment may be) “journalists” will not altogether be sporting about his little chuckle up his own sleeve.

You have the power to hurt real people, sir, but you are not simply “funny.” You are a fool.

I would be happy to read from you in the future a post using the exact satiric tone as you used yesterday, for American minorities or for issues that offend them. Let’s see then if those Americans accept that “satire” as you claim and how this will affect you… You know when you see people laughing at serious matters usually, anyone, would believe that this is not humor but lack of intellectual activity..

Xourdouboudrou2′s comments are well-taken. We all look forward to Mr Fezza’s “hilarious” column satirising Jewish-Americans with all the racial clichés and Anti-Semitisms that will send his Jewish-American readers laughing in the aisles – at Bill desperately begging for work at his nearest MacDonalds.

The Greeks are down and they make an easy target for chortling bullies, Bill. They may not deserve sympathy but, like everyone else, they certainly deserve fairness. Kicking women who have slipped on the ice with your steel-toed boots can’t possibly be as much fun as you make it out to be.